Threats, opportunities on the table as farm foresters meet

ENVIRONMENTAL issues of the day will be the focus of this year’s New Zealand Farm Forestry Association annual conference.

Up to 250 members of the NZFFA are expected to attend the five-day conference in Timaru, from March 30 to April 3. Nationally, the association has about 1500 members, down from its heyday in the mid 1990s, when numbers topped 4500.

Convener Ian Jackson said the conference theme of “The new normal: opportunity or threat?” is aimed at facilitating discussion of the environmental issues facing forestry. Carbon and the implications of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) for farm foresters would be a focus as would national environmental standards for plantation forestry and practical ways to apply them.

The event will look at the “threats posed, but also the opportunity as well”.

The conference, which was last held in Timaru in 2002, will include field trips to farms in Timaru, the Mackenzie Basin and Mt Cook station, and a look at riparian planting aimed at improving water quality on a dairy farm in Geraldine. It is hoped that Forestry Minister Stuart Nash will also be able to address the group.